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Factual: Travel

Travel magazine, featuring travellers' tales, experiences and anecdotes

Excess Baggage: 24/04/2010

24/04/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Excess Baggage, 24/04/2010

John McCarthy looks at historical Tuscany and buying a farm in Brazil.

John McCarthy hears from Alistair Moffat and Charles FitzRoy how history is at the heart of Tuscan tourism, and what made Leigh Richardson buy a farm in Brazil?

John McCarthy talks to writer Alistair Moffat about how history is at the heart of tourism in Tuscany. While the weather and the food are obviously big enticements, it is the culture, buildings and art of the Renaissance times, the Roman era and, even before that, the Etruscan period that have attracted visitors, from Dr Johnson to Dylan Thomas, to rediscover the joys of this part of Italy. And Charles FitzRoy who leads art tours of the region gives an insight into how Florence must have appeared to a visitor there in 1490. 

Leigh Richardson works as a health and social services manager in Devon and is frightened of cows but that didn't prevent her from falling in love with a farm in northern Brazil. She bought it and has started to raise cattle there and she tells John McCarthy how she manages to juggle her two lives and what it's like to be plunged into the macho world of Brazilian cowboys.

Producer: Harry Parker.

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24/04/2010

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